Since we heard of a need at coil centers to count steel sheets prior to shipment, we started developing sheet counter.
The idea was that the section of the pile of steel sheets is photographed by a camera and the number of sheets are counted from the image. However, we remained unclear with regard to the processing system.
It was necessary to accurately extract borders of steel sheet section, but the way the sections were projected varied depending on the type of sheet. In addition, we needed to consider the impact of ambient light and the issue of manufacturing cost. It was hard to find a way to process that satisfies all the aspects, thus we remained in a stage of trial and error for some time.

• First prototype
• First product

Since the brightness of image was not good enough to extract borders of steel sheets, we focused on the magnitude of the brightness change.
A mere magnitude of the brightness change does not make counting feasible because of too much noise content. While struggling to find a reliable processing system, we finally came up with a system enabling counting in a versatile way by focusing on a certain amount of characteristic. We are not able to disclose a detail of the amount of characteristic because it is a business secret, however, what I can tell you is that this discovery was inspired by the processing system invented to detect an absence of washer in a previous product development.
When we came up with this processing system, we were just in a stage of implementing it in a program without any assessment, but I remember even now that curiously, I felt sure that we finally came to a solution.

Since the release of the sheet counter in 2016, we have sold the product not only in Japan but also to coil centers overseas. Unfortunately at the beginning, there were some occurrences of misalignment of internal equipment in the process of being transported overseas due to insufficient strength of the chassis, which caused troubles, such as inability to count. (This trouble is solved now.)
Today, the feedback from customers are mostly positive. There are multiple cases where a customer had been using the product since the release and has become a repeater. It is impossible to accurately count hundreds of steel sheet by the human eye. The sheet counter does that accurately in seconds, and that is why our sheet counter is highly valued.
Even before the release of the sheet counter, our company had a connection with customers in the steel industry, but cultivating customers in areas other than the steel industry was not very active. Although the sheet counter was developed for steel sheets, it may be able to count anything regardless of the material as long as the product is in sheet form. Therefore, we commenced business operations covering new areas such as parts manufacturers and housing equipment manufacturers.
We have an increasing number of inquires from customers with respective agendas, such as "mechanization of visual counting" and "prevention of shipping error", and that has triggered to build new business relationship in different industries.